R/GA Los Angeles expanded its executive leadership team with the arrivals of Adrian Barrow as executive strategy director, Brandon Mugar as co-executive creative director and Jai Tedeschi as executive production director. The new executives follow the arrival of Nicky Bell as the office’s managing director last August and round out a leadership team that also includes co-executive creative director Kalle Hellzen and executive production director, U.S. content studio Kat Friis.
“Since opening in 2013, we have built an incredible model that spans innovation (via our accelerator program in partnership with the LA Dodgers) to communications, and a thriving content studio,” said R/GA U.S. president Sean Lyons said in a statement. “In only four months Nicky has made a real impact on R/GA LA, the ability to attract top talent like Brandon, Adrian, and Jai is proof of that.”
“Brandon joining Kalle as co-ECD, was a natural move for us given our belief in creating at the intersection of stories and systems. It will be a dynamic and complementary partnership and one that will have a real impact on our work,” added Bell. “Add to that Adrian’s diverse and very deep experience in brand strategy, and Jai and Kat innovating around our experience, tech and content production capabilities, we could not be more excited for what is to come in 2017.”
Barrow arrives at R/GA from JWT, where he has spent nearly a decade, serving as head of planning for JWT New York and then global planning director. Prior to JWT, the Perth native served as executive director, strategy for Saatchi & Saatchi Australia in Sydney. He has also spent time as an account planning director with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and as executive director, strategy and planning for Team One.
Mugar arrives at the agency following a little over a year as a freelance creative director for Wieden + Kenendy, where he worked on the Samsung account. He has been working freelance since leaving Barton F. Graf, where he served as an executive creative director for ten months, in early 2014. Before that he spent nearly two and a half years as a creative director with W+K New York, following another freelance stint and five years at BBDO in various creative director and art director roles before that. Over the course of his career he has worked with clients including Adidas, Axe, HBO, Jordan, HBO and Airbnb.
Tedeschi is transferring from R/GA London, where she has spent the past three years helping grow the office’s production department in various executive production roles after initially working in a freelance production position on clients including Beats by Dre and Heinken. Before joining R/GA she worked as a freelance producer and project director for agencies such as adam&eveDDB, AKQA and Lowe Open.